USA Today

Back to the Future Day

01 — Objective

For Back to the Future Day (BTTF Day), a day more than 30 years in the making, USA TODAY had but one goal: shift brand perception from a brand trying to be a part of the conversation to a brand that was owning the conversation — organically.

02 — Summary

To accomplish this we kicked off a comprehensive social listening plan in tandem with USA TODAY’s social team that allowed us to monitor the conversations surrounding USA TODAY and Back to the Future, and respond in real time with custom assets created and optimized specifically for the day.

We kicked everything off by doing a complete makeover of USA Today’s social channels to match the 2015 logo from the movie.

03 — The Newspaper

In order to ensure that this message wasn’t lost amongst all of the other chatter, on BTTF Day’s eve, USA TODAY secured a digital exclusive with Adweek to kickstart the festivities and make sure the announcement was heard throughout space and time.

Word quickly spread as #BacktotheFuture began to trend on Twitter. And much like USA TODAY’s futuristic website and social profile makeovers, we gave USA TODAY’s “Trends TODAY” program a bit of a makeover as well.

To top it off, USA TODAY was gearing up to release the physical paper as seen in the movie on October 22, 2015 — the day after BTTF Day.

And shortly after we began posting that morning, the people of 2015 had spoken.

Meanwhile, while our assets were in play, we began creating a hub on Tumblr to collect some of the most fun, offbeat, and creative tie-ins for Back to the Future throughout the day. From memes and animations to side-by-side comparisons, Tumblr became one of the most popular places to get caught up on all things Back to the Future. Back to the Future Day was a huge success, but for USA TODAY, it wasn’t over. As soon as October 22nd rolled around, the mad dash for the nearest newspaper stands began.